BERKELEY — Fresh from a ballot-box victory to tax sugary drinks over the opposition of the powerful beverage industry — and a decision to provide labels at fuel pumps tying driving to climate change — the City Council voted Tuesday to craft an ordinance requiring retailers to give consumers information on the safe use of cellular phones.

The vote was 7-2, with Mayor Tom Bates and Councilman Gordon Wozniak in opposition.

Councilman Max Anderson, who authored the measure, said it was necessary because cellphone manufacturers buried warnings in small print in the owner’s manual or in the cellphone itself.

“We have an ethical responsibility to ensure that the language is brought up in a fashion that people can read it and understand it and apply it to the usage of the phone,” he said, arguing that “the drive for money and profits sometimes shortchanges the truth when it comes to providing consumers with useful information.”

The measure asks the city attorney to draft the ordinance and suggests language for handouts that retailers would give to cellphone purchasers:

“The federal government requires that cellphones meet radio frequency (RF) exposure guidelines. Don’t carry or use your phone in a pants or shirt pocket or tucked into a bra when the phone is turned ON and connected to a wireless network. This will prevent exposure to RF levels that may exceed the federal guidelines. Refer to the instructions in your phone or user manual for the recommended separation distance (from your body).”

Many of the 25 or so members of the public who urged the council to pass the ordinance made the link between using cellphones close to the body and brain tumors or breast cancer.

Alan Marks, who has brain cancer, told the council that he held his cellphone for years next to his head where a tumor was found. He said physicians all over the world reviewed his medical records and “said it was due to my cellphone.”

Gerard Keegan, senior director for legislative affairs for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry, argued against the measure. “All the impartial expert agencies that have looked at this issue have concluded that there are no known adverse health risks associated with cellphone use,” he said. “We have no evidence that (wearing a cellphone close to the body) poses any significant health risk.”

Berkeley Chamber of Commerce CEO Polly Armstrong also called on the council to drop the measure, citing “unproven and unrealistic fears of the few.”

“No wireless devices can be sold in America without meeting the FCC regulations,” Armstrong said.

Anderson pointed out that the question before the council wasn’t to prove a link between cellphone use and medical consequences. It was to bring to light statements the FCC already required the cellphone companies to make.

City Attorney Zach Cowan said it would be his task, working with pro bono outside attorney Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor, to write an ordinance that was “as ironclad as possible.”

A San Francisco ordinance was successfully challenged in court by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, which argued that it violated the First Amendment by compelling retailers to make what were claimed to be misleading statements on wireless phone safety. The ordinance required retailers to provide warnings saying that cellphones emit potentially cancer-causing radiation.

“We’ve taken great pains to ensure that the language that we’ve recommended is language that legally passes muster and that it does not fall victim to the language problems of the San Francisco ordinance,” Anderson said.